So it’s official — Sportsnet is now in the business of curling, and not just from a broadcasting standpoint, but they’re going to be running events and, if all goes according to plans, profiting from them.

This is a monumental day for curling, it goes without saying. Rogers Media made a major statement today by saying it believes in the sport and wants to grow it, and sees an opportunity to make money from it.

Scott Moore, one of the cagiest guys you’ll find in the Canadian broadcast industry, said it very plainly: “We believe in owning world-class content.”
Here’s the entire announcement:

TORONTO (August 30, 2012) Sportsnet today announced it has purchased the Grand Slam of Curling and will be establishing a new events division. This purchase marks a significant milestone for Sportsnet, as the multiplatform media brand expands its diverse portfolio into the sports events category, furthering its commitment to providing fans with premium sports experiences and content across multiple platforms.

Sportsnet will now wholly own and operate the Grand Slam of Curling, which is part of the World Curling Tour. The elite series of men’s and women’s curling events features the best teams from across Canada and around the world. The Grand Slam of Curling was acquired by Sportsnet from Insight Sports Ltd.

Curling is an essential part of our Canadian sports fabric, and the Grand Slam of Curling is the cream of the crop in international curling events,” said Scott Moore, President, Broadcasting, Rogers Media. “We are proud to own and operate the Grand Slam of Curling, as it furthers Sportsnet’s commitment to producing world-class content, anyplace, anyhow and anywhere and allows us to integrate and engage the sports fan in innovative ways through our new events division. Sportsnet intends to grow the Grand Slam of Curling like never before.”

On behalf of the Grand Slam players, we are thrilled to welcome Sportsnet as the new owners of the Grand Slam of Curling,” said Pierre Charette, President, World Competitive Curlers Association. “This is great news for the Canadian curling community as a whole. Sportsnet will operate events that are second-to-none, broadcast more games and take the Grand Slam of Curling to another level.”

The 2012-13 Grand Slam of Curling series kicks off with The Masters, taking place in Brantford, ON from November 14 to 18. The series will air on Sportsnet and CBC, through a sub-licensing agreement. Additional details regarding the full 2012-13 Grand Slam of Curling schedule and broadcast details will be announced in the coming weeks.

Sportsnet has a long history of producing and televising curling. The network’s curling coverage began with the inaugural season of the World Curling Tour when the network launched in 1988, and has continued with various curling events including the Grand Slam of Curling between 2001 and 2006.

So here’s what we know: the first Slam will take place in mid-November in Brantford, Ont., and will feature 34 men’s and 34 women’s teams — in essence, taking an existing World Curling Tour event and making it a Slam. Ideally, said World Curling Players Association president Pierre Charette, more co-ed Slams will be held down the road, but for now, only the Brantford event and the season-ending Players’ Championships — Moore said negotiations are underway to stage the event in Toronto — will feature male and female events.

Because we’re late in the game, Moore could only commit to holding three men’s Slams this season, with a possibility of four, but he also said the goal is to expand down the road, up to double figures, with the existing prize purse — a minimum of $100,000 per event — to remain and, again ideally, grow.

More intriguing is the expansion of the television offerings. CBC will be part of the Slam package, likely showing the weekend finals to a broader audience than Sportsnet can reach. It’s great to see the original curling broadcaster back into the Roaring Game, and it will be a good lead-up to CBC’s coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympics.

And one can’t help but wonder, by the way, if this is a sign of things to come when it comes to the Olympics. Surely CBC doesn’t have enough platforms to show the Games entirely on their own; it would make sense to have Rogers as a partner to distribute to as wide of an audience as possible.

Back to the Slams: you can look for two or three draws a day to be shown in a variety of media platforms — through Sportsnet’s various television channels as well as online and to tablets. This is a huge move forward from the days of only a couple games per weekend being shown.

What this means, of course, is that curling viewers of Canada will have never been so well-served. With all due respect to the crew at Sportsnet, TSN is still the king when it comes to curling.They have the Season of Champions events that, quite frankly, mean more to curling fans than the Slams ever will, and will show them through 2020. That’s just a fact. And while it’s notable that Sportsnet is now staging events, TSN has been doing that, and doing it exceedingly well, for years with the Skins Games. Sportsnet will have a ton of work to make up ground on TSN’s production side when it comes to the look of curling broadcasts, and the on-air crew of Vic, Linda and Russ is currently the gold standard (although Mike Harris needs to be on the air as much as possible. Make it so, Scott Moore. Quickly).

Competition, though, is a good thing, and the viewers will benefit in the long run.

So, too, will the curlers. Sponsorship deals had to be hard to come by this summer because of the uncertainty of the broadcasting situation (sponsorship deals are typically easier to sell if TV exposure is part of it). More TV time means more money for curlers.

Finally, a word or two about a couple of the principals in the Grand Slam drama that has played out over the past year.

First, Pierre Charette. He has lived and died with the Slams for a long time, and you’ll have to travel a long ways in Canada to find someone in the curling community with a bad word to say about him. The past year’s financial problems with Kevin Albrecht and iSport were a challenge for Charette, but he worked tirelessly to hold the series together. He’d never admit to this, but I have it on good authority that had Charette not put up a financial guarantee himself prior to the first Slam event last season, the entire season might have collapsed. This is a very good day for him.

Secondly, Kevin Albrecht. He’s become a bit of a whipping boy for the Slam’s troubles in recent months, and you have to say he deserves a good chunk of the blame. He was over-extended, and things just started imploding around him. But let’s never forget that it was Albrecht who was one of the visionaries behind the Slam circuit. I still have a vivid memory of my first chat with Albrecht, in one of the meeting rooms at the Calgary Curling Club in the spring of 2001, when the Players’ Championship was being held at the CCC. Then, he was with IMG, and he gave me the first exclusive peek at plans to stage four so-called “majors” during the curling season.

“I think that’s really where we should focus on this tour; events that we could brand, events that the fans and players know are big,” said Albrecht during that 2001 interview. “I think there are a lot of events worthy of it, maybe 10 or 11 events that could qualify as majors. A lot of it has to do with timing, from an arena perspective and from a television perspective.”

There’s no question the sport is better for having the Slams, and Albrecht was a primary architect. And, again, to his credit, he stuck by the Slams for more than a decade and worked hard in his attempts to grow them. Yes, he rubbed plenty of people — particularly in the upper echelons of the Canadian Curling Association — the wrong way, but where others may have bailed out on the Slams, he stuck around until he was forced out. His role in getting the Slams to a point where a company such asRogers sees them as a corporate asset cannot, and should not, be overlooked.

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